COLUMN: UNC respectable in win

Monday

Sep 9, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 9, 2013 at 11:53 PM

Brett Friedlander

CHAPEL HILL -- It’s hard to find fault with an effort in which a team gained 511 yards, scored 40 points, intercepted three passes and was never seriously threatened, as was the case in North Carolina’s 40-20 win against Middle Tennessee on Saturday at Kenan Stadium. And yet, as much improvement as the Tar Heels showed from their opening week loss at South Carolina, you couldn’t help but come away with the feeling that there was still something missing from their effort.

It wasn’t so much the glaring things this time, like the two big plays they gave up on defense or the fumbled punt that helped lead to their demise in Columbia. It was more a collection of little mistakes and mental errors, starting with a miscommunication on the pregame coin flip that caused UNC to have to kick off to the Blue Raiders at the start of both halves. Though the Tar Heels managed to work around their lapses this time and post their first victory of the new season, they won’t be so lucky the next time against a better opponent if they’re allowed to accumulate and continue.

“I thought there were a lot of times today when we were playing the type of ball we want to play, and then there were other times we didn’t,” coach Larry Fedora said afterward. “We’ve got a lot to correct. We’ve got a lot of room for improvement in all three phases. But there were some really bright spots out there today.”

Among the brightest was the improvement of a defense that still gave up some yardage, but in much smaller chunks. And when it got into trouble, it was able to get out of it by taking the ball away four times. The most pivotal of those turnovers came on the game’s opening possession, when after Middle Tennessee drove all the way down to the UNC 1, senior safety Tre Boston leaped high into the air to intercept a Logan Kilgore pass in the end zone. The Blue Raiders gained 68 yards on that first drive, but managed only 31 more for the rest of the half to allow the Tar Heels to open up a 23-0 lead by the break.

“Tre Boston had an amazing pick and that set the tone for the rest of the game for the defense,” said junior linebacker (Ashbrook product) Norkeithus Otis, who had his second straight big game with five tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble.

“Coach (Fedora) came to me afterward and told me that was a game changing play, Boston said. “After that, I really felt that’s when we got our rhythm going. It’s big plays like that that can really motivate our team offensively and defensively.”

The problem is that the motivation, along with the Tar Heels’ execution, seemed to come and go over the course of a long afternoon at Kenan Stadium. For all the positives, including quarterback Bryn Renner’s 339 yards through the air and the diversity of 12 different receivers catching as least one pass, there were nearly as many frustrating negatives. Among the worst were the holding penalty that cost it a successful two-point conversion and the fumble by freshman Ryan Switzer that was returned for a Middle Tennessee touchdown early in the third quarter. Those physical mistakes, however, weren’t even close to the most troubling made by the Tar Heels on Saturday.

“We had a lot of little mental errors that kept us from executing as well as we should,” said running back Romar Morris, who rushed for 46 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns. “It was just mental lapses. The first half we got out there, but we weren’t playing as hard as we could in the second half. We have to do better.”

The good news for the Tar Heels is that despite the blemishes, they still won handily. And now they have a week off before traveling to Atlanta for their ACC opener against Georgia Tech. It’s a week Fedora said will be spent working to smooth over the many rough edges that still remain in his team’s performance. Both the big ones and the small.

ACC Insider Brett Friedlander can be reached at starnewsacc@gmail.com or twitter.com/starnewsacc